Using Dilemmas in Faculty Professional Development

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This session introduces the use of dilemmas as a tool for engaging faculty in discussions of the affective domain in their teaching. First we will spend time discussing and writing solutions to dilemmas that involve the affective domain. We will then reflect on our experiences with the dilemmas and explore how they might be used in our home institutions.

Description of the "Dilemma method":

Faculty are often unaware of the role that the affective domain plays in their teaching and their students learning. Dilemma's provide a mechanism for helping faculty to identify places where they have faced challenges that relate to the affective domain and provide a platform for group discussions of those challenges.

This method was developed in a 3-day workshop on the affective domain in geoscience teaching led by David McConnell, Tom Koballa, David Mogk and Cathy Manduca in February 2007. Ed Nuhfer and Jeff Johnston were participants in the workshop, and James Rhem furnished participants with published National Teaching and Learning FORUM issues that contained articles (created separately from this SERC workshop) on the affective domain. The method is based on the use of scenarios or case studies in teaching and professional development.

Use of cases for faculty development of teachers is not new. Anson, Cafarelli, Rutz, and Weis (1988) used cases to guide participants to reflective teaching in the late 1980s. For at least two decades, faculty developers have created "trigger tapes" that display a classroom dilemma for generating participant discussion and solutions. However, the case method has been developed to its highest level of sophistication as a formal pedagogy in colleges of business (Christensen and Garvin, 1991; Barnes, Christensen, and Hansen, 1994). Later, college science teachers began to recognize and embrace this pedagogy (Herreid, 2006; Yadav and others, 2007).

We called the scenarios 'dilemmas' because we wanted a carefully focused event where the faculty were not sure how to proceed. When we used other names (e.g. scenario or case study) we had less success in obtaining the kinds of descriptions we were looking for. If you peruse the collection of dilemmas from the workshop, you will see that even after we had discussed specific dilemmas, faculty found it challenging to focus in this way.

During the February 2007 workshop we used dilemmas in three ways:

we asked individuals to write a dilemma they had face personally, their response and an analysis of the affective domain in this situation. These essays were submitted as part of the workshop application.

We asked the group as a whole to read a single dilemma (which was presented by one of the conveners of this workshop); a panel of experts presented information relevant to the dilemma; and armed with this information small groups wrote a series of responses to the dilemma.

We introduced an aspect of the affective domain; asked small groups to write dilemmas based on their experience; one or more experts provided relevant information; and small groups were asked to write solutions to dilemmas posed by other groups.

The workshop program from February 2007 workshop shows this structure and provides links to the presentations and the resulting dilemmas.

Workshop evaluations indicated that working with dilemmas was the most highly valued aspect of the workshop. In the words of one participant "[Learning] the importance of cases as a tool in discussing the affective domain [was the most valuable aspect of the workshop for me] People relate to stories; solutions to case dilemma seem do-able."

For the POD workshop, we have selected five dilemmas (above) for you to address in small groups. Each group will read and discuss the dilemma and develop one or more written solutions (to be submitted as Word files for posting on the SERC website with attribution). We will then ask each group to report out in 3 minutes. This will be followed by a whole group discussion of method and how it might be used in faculty professional development.

NAGT is seeking a qualified person to serve as the Association's Executive Director to begin August 2019.

NAGT's mission is to support a diverse, inclusive, and thriving community of educators and education researchers to improve teaching and learning about the Earth. NAGT represents the collective voice of K-12 teachers, college and university faculty, and informal educators in museums and science centers who share a vision to build geoscience expertise and an Earth-literate society through high-quality education. We seek an exceptional Executive Director to build on past successes and to provide strategic leadership to guide NAGT toward new opportunities for growth.

To learn more about the position and instructions to apply, visit this website.

David McConnell Publishes Article on InTeGrate in Earth MagazineDavid McConnell of North Carolina State University published an article on InTeGrate in the latest issue of Earth magazine. Titled, "Making the first (and last) geoscience class count," the article calls attention to opportunities within introductory geoscience courses to address grand societal challenges that are rooted in the geosciences, thus helping students develop "an appreciation for the global perspective, cultural sensitivity and scientific insight that inform decisions regarding the challenges humans will face in the future."

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Provenance: NAGTReuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

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The On the Cutting Edge website and workshop program are supported by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT). Your membership is helping to ensure that this site can continue to serve geoscience educators.